Good To Be Alive
by Dracowolf2
Summary: Alternate Universe Natasha is adopted by the Drake family at a young age with no memory of her past but some odd abilities she can't explain. After a few months Bruce Banner is brought into the family. The two become siblings and look out for each other, soon after meeting Clint who becomes their best friend. This is their life. Rating for mentions of Child Abuse
1. Meeting

She would always remember when he was first brought into her home. She was adopted less than a year before and it was different to see another kid get adopted into a place she'd come to consider hers, more so after the trouble she caused. She didn't remember anything really, she knew she was Russian and was sent over to America to be adopted by the Drake family. Other than her name and where she came from she had no clue really who she was. When she first showed up, she had no memory of Russia or what she had been through just a feeling of aggression inside her and quick reflexes. Still over the last few years, this place had become hers. Now there was this new kid, a boy.

She knew the Drakes were kind people but this was different. This was their nephew being brought into her home after something happened to his family. She didn't know what, she heard only whispers about the boy when no one thought she could hear or understand them but she would never mistake words like abuse, alcohol, death and murder. Still when Natasha first met the boy, she didn't like him. There was something unsettling about him that told her to stay away at first.

Bruce was a scrawny, brown haired, glasses wearing, quiet mess of a boy. He didn't smile when she saw him, didn't wave when she did, didn't even speak to her. Maybe that was just from what had happened to him but he didn't interact with anyone. He stared at the floor and if someone asked him a question he took a while to respond even then the only response that came was a shake of his head. Bruce had just gone to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, his face was completely emotionless as he stared at the floor.

Natasha had at that point mistakenly decided that he probably didn't want to be friends with anyone, just wanted to shut them out. She stubbornly decided that was fine with her, that if the boy didn't want to be friends with her and didn't want anything to do with her that's how it would be. He could stay in his room and she would act like he wasn't there. This was still her home after all and this boy wasn't going to change that.

It remained that way through the day, Bruce didn't really respond to anything. When he was called by his new guardians he came without question but still didn't speak much. Natasha figured that he probably didn't know his aunt that well all things considered. She had been the one to step forward to take guardianship of Bruce, willing to adopt him fully into the family and stand in for his absent parents. It had almost surprised Natasha when she heard Bruce speak; almost thinking the boy was a mute up until they were eating dinner with the family. At that point they were able to coax a "yes" and a very quiet "I'll be good" out of him. Though the second statement seemed very off to Natasha, almost mechanical in how he said it like it was just his go-to thing to say. After that Bruce stared at his plate and each time a question was asked after that he would just nod or shrug. Eventually everyone gave up trying to get him to talk and the room settled into an uncomfortable silence.

Natasha spent the rest of the night playing on her own. She paid no mind to Bruce who was still silent and constantly went off to find a place of his own, out of the way of everyone. He mostly spent time in his room which was across the hall from Natasha's. This went on for a few days, Natasha just became more and more aware of Bruce and left him be, really they only saw each other when Bruce's Aunt convinced him to come join the family for a meal.

Things changed one night though, Bruce had been with them for barely a week when it started to happen. Natasha was trying to fall asleep when she heard something coming from Bruce's room. There was a whimper and a soft cry coming from Bruce and she could hear him shuffle in his bed uncomfortably. She knew those sounds; they were the sounds of a nightmare that had taken hold on Bruce.

She waited patiently for a bit, hoping they would stop soon but they didn't. She then waited expecting the guardians to come and comfort the boy; they had always done so for her during her first few weeks. She would cry out in the night from a nightmare, that didn't make sense to her, and one of them would show up. Sometimes both would come and they would just calmly tell her it was alright, they'd stay with her until she fell back asleep. However the soft cries and whimpers continued and no one came. She cried out in her head wondering how they couldn't hear the boy when she could hear him so clearly. She tried to wish them awake with her mind, begging them to stop the whimpers and cries. Still no one came.

The sounds got worse until finally she sat up in her bed and slid out. She made her way over to Bruce's room, not bothering to knock before entering. She stood in the doorway looking at the boy in the bed. He was tossing and turning and had kicked the blankets of to one side. He scratched at the air trying to get some invisible thing away from himself but had no luck. He whimpered and cried, completely trapped in his own mind, he was sweating and his breathing was quick. Natasha recalled her own nightmare filled nights. She'd be the same way though instead of the soft cries and whimpers she'd scream for help.

Natasha walked over to Bruce's bed remembering everything her new family had done to calm her down. Sometimes she'd be allowed to sleep in the bed of her guardians and just having the presence of someone else there seemed to help. Having someone whisper about how it would be okay always seemed to be what she needed or the sound of someone's heart with their calm breathing. She still wondered where they were now though, why weren't they providing the same help to this boy?

Natasha reached over and shook Bruce gently, but he didn't wake. She frowned and stood there for a while as he didn't calm down. Bruce stopped thrashing though and curled into a ball as if he was giving up fighting and just accepting whatever was going on his mind. He was still whimpering, still crying but it was softer than before as he stayed curled up there

At that point Natasha climbed into his bed and laid down. She wrapped an arm around him and hugged him. "It's okay, you're safe," She whispered, reminding him that she was real and what was in his head wasn't. She kept repeating it for maybe a minute and as she did so the whimpering slowly stopped.

A short while after the whimpers stopped. Figuring Bruce was calming down Natasha reached over to grab the blankets that had been kicked away and pull it over Bruce. She was considering leaving when a hand caught her arm. She could see the outline of Bruce's face just barely, the large scared eyes staring at her. She settled back down beside him and hugged him again as he whispered to her, "Don't leave me."

"Never," Natasha promised in a slight whisper, tightening her grip on the boy to emphasize that she meant it. Natasha felt Bruce pull the blanket over her as well to help keep her warm and a slight smile crossed her face when she felt the boy hug her back. It didn't matter if Natasha didn't like him before, she knew that right now they were the same and they needed each other.

In the morning the Drake's found them together, hugging each other for comfort in Bruce's bed. Natasha was lectured about how she shouldn't sleep in the same bed as her new brother, but she stood strong and argued back about how she was there for him when he needed her and always would be. It was after that when Natasha realized that Bruce was her brother now, really he should have been counted as a cousin but no, he was more than that. The Drakes were not just his uncle and aunt now they were his parents and Natasha was his sister and Natasha understood that even if no one else realized it.

The lecture changed nothing, each time either of them had a nightmare they'd be in the other's bed. Bruce would softly knock on Natasha's door, too nervous to just barge in as she did. Sometimes he wouldn't actually go because he felt bad for getting her in trouble or couldn't wake up but when he started to cry out at night, she'd show up every single time. Natasha would barge into Bruce's room if he needed help or if she needed his comfort in return, she actually spent more night in Bruce's room than her own.

At one point the Drake's tried to convince them not to do it by putting locks on the door, but that didn't stop Natasha. Turns out she could pick locks, no one was really sure how she knew what to do but it fell under the weird reflexes she had. Something about her past never added up to anyone. Also the Drake's did seem to admit that it was a bit extreme to use locks like that not to mention dangerous so they were removed within a few days of being installed.

Through those nights Natasha and Bruce had become best friends and swore to stick together through thick and thin. Natasha could get Bruce to open up more and talk when she wanted to; for the most part she let him have his silent comfort zone around others. They did talk and play together when they were alone though.

Natasha only asked about what happened to Bruce only once. He told her that his father used to call him a monster and say that something was wrong with him, some nonsense about his genetics being faulty from radiation or something. Bruce had been beaten in every sense of the word and his father had become an alcoholic. His mother still cared though, Bruce spoke fondly of her though it sounded like his father rarely let her be with Bruce. Bruce had been left in the care of a nanny who hated him and wanted nothing to do with him, she just wanted the money. Then one day when his mother tried to leave with Bruce his father caught them. In a fit of rage Bruce's father had killed his mother right in front of him. Bruce had been threatened into silence during the trial but even without him saying anything his father had been found guilty and insane. His father was now in an insane asylum. Bruce had decided that emotions were bad, that emotions were what killed his mother.

Natasha had hugged Bruce after he gave her the answer and swore not to bring it up again. When asked about her own past she couldn't tell Bruce anything, no matter how hard she tried to remember. Bruce asked her once about the nightmares she had and the only thing she could tell him was she was in a room, tied down in a chair and there were men around her. She wasn't sure what they were doing but she knew it was something bad. Bruce asked her how she knew both English and Russian so well since Natasha carried almost no accent and the only response was a shrug, and a response that came down to the fact that she just knew it. It was like lock picking and the reflexes she had in a fight, the odd sense of balance she had it was just part of her.

Neither dived into the other's past more than that but were always aware. Something bad happened to both of them, they both had nightmares but they had each other. Nothing was going to change any of that. They lived together for nearly a year as brother and sister when they finally met Clint.

* * *

((So first off I don't own the characters.

Second if I continue this on (I don't know if I will) it will be a weird sort of fanfic. There's a lot of humor later on I have planed with just how the group dynamics will work but there's still some serious stuff that needs to be set up first. The plan was to have the majority of this fanfic take place in high school after setting up how they get along which would involve high school shenanigans. As I said, I don't know. I might just return my focus to My Own Enemy and finish this but this chapter has been sitting on my computer doing nothing so I figured, why not see what happens. As I said if this went on it would strong go towards humor for a while after setting up the characters.))


	2. Clint

They were attending elementary when they first met Clint, and it wasn't a good first encounter. It was recess; Bruce was waiting over by a wall for Natasha to return she had gone to see about getting a ball for them to play with. While standing there some boys who were a few years older than he was walked over with a boy his age walked towards him. He recognized the boy from his class, a new kid who had shown up a week before but both Natasha and Bruce rarely socialized with anyone so they had no interest in speaking to the new boy. Bruce tried to recall his name but didn't have time to before they reached him. He hadn't been doing anything wrong or anything to annoy them he was just waiting around but when looking for an easy target, a loner with big round glasses like Bruce tended to be the easiest.

One of the older boys whispered something to the boy Bruce's age and pushed him forward. The boy awkwardly rubbed his arm and looked at Bruce, "Uh. Hey nerd, give me your lunch money?" He sounded completely uncertain of himself.

"Why?" Bruce questioned.

The boy looked over his shoulder at the older kids behind him, the one who had whispered something had crossed his arms over his chest and frowned while the others smirked and snickered at each other waiting. The boy in front of Bruce took a deep breath and puffed out his chest slightly to look bigger, "Cuz I said so that's why. Hand it over or I'll beat it out of ya."

Bruce shook his head, "But it's my lunch money…" The boy in front of him still looked uncertain.

"Come on Clint don't want to be weak like him do ya?" One of the older boys called out. With that the boy, Clint apparently, seemed to change. No longer uncertain about what he was doing.

"I said hand it over dork!" Clint grabbed the front of Bruce's shirt and glared at him, "Before I break your face with my fist." He raised his hand to punch him and Bruce closed his eyes tightly.

"HEY!" Natasha's voice called out as the red rubber ball she had gotten left her hands and collided with the side of Clint's head. "Let go of my brother."

"THAT HURT!" Clint yelled letting go of Bruce to rub the side of his head. "Are you nuts!?"

"Of course it hurt, you were planning on punching my brother," Natasha replied getting right up into Clint's face, "I should be doing a lot worse to you."

"Back off princess we're trying to conduct a business deal here," one of the older boys stepped in, "your brother was about to pay Clint here out of his own free will." At the princess comment Natasha releases one fist into the boy's face.

Natasha nearly spits, "Don't ever call me princess."

"You little bitch!" The boy had his hand over his nose and his friends are prepared to help him beat Natasha up for her stunt.

"Barney just let it go!" Clint was yelling while getting in the way, "It's not worth it! I didn't want to do this anyways!" At that moment a whistle blows and they can see a teacher making their way over. The older boys back off since they don't really want to get in trouble more than they already could be getting into. The glares from them suggest that Natasha is probably going to get it from them eventually and the boy Clint called Barney shoots a nasty look at Clint.

In the end they're all escorted down to the office and thanks to the stupid system there Natasha in the one who gets in the most trouble while the boys are free to go. Despite the office staff and the principle telling Bruce to go back to class he refuses to leave Natasha, who is being sent home for the day and has a week of detention which originally was two but they were able to get it talked down to one, as long as she speaks to the school councillor at least once.

When their mom came to pick them up both Bruce and Natasha could see Clint outside the office, they didn't say anything to him as they passed but he watched them leave the school. Clint had learned the first rule of Natasha, touching her brother would lead to her wrath.

In the car both Natasha and Bruce are informed that they are grounded, though Natasha is grounded for longer than Bruce. Bruce was grounded for giving the office staff a hard time and forcing them to send him home as well. Though it's clear after Bruce tells the story that their mom believes all of the boys involved should have a much harsher punishment, but still Natasha is the one who actually punched someone and tossed a ball at Clint's head. Despite all the trouble they get into, when the story is told to their dad that night Natasha is sent up to bed without dessert, though Bruce notices him sneak off with a piece of cake for her anyways. Secretly, he's proud of what she did.

Bruce and Natasha entered the school the next day together as they always did. Natasha was frowning about having to stay after school but she knew Bruce would wait for her and they'd still walk home together, still it annoyed her. They took off their outdoor shoes and switched to the ones the school made them keep around so that they wouldn't track in mud and water. Placing the outdoor shoes one the racks at the entrance where their class kept theirs. They soon noticed Clint standing outside of their classroom. Both noticed his black eye and a few bruises forming on his arms. He was tugging at his sleeves trying to keep them covered. He seemed to lighten up when he saw the two, getting a slight smile on his face as he approached.

"Hey, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about yesterday," Clint looked at the ground starting to lose his nerves once he started to talk. Bruce didn't like Clint mainly from the event form before but he knew those bruises weren't from Natasha, nor was the black eye.

"Is that all?" Natasha clearly wasn't happy with Clint either but she was coming to the same realization of Bruce.

"Look Barney was out of line, I shouldn't have done what he said," Clint replied rubbing the back of his neck, "Please, I really am sorry about it."

"Sorry? Really? You tried to beat up my brother and take his lunch money and all you got is sorry?" Bruce had to hold Natasha back from punching Clint.

Clint winced, "I know, it's not enough. Barney is my brother and well, it was stupid. I'll find a way to make it up to you both. Please?"

Clint gave a slight smile at the two but Bruce still wasn't convinced, nor did he want anything to do with the boy. He started to drag Natasha into class whispering, "We shouldn't be late."

Bruce's stomach had twisted as he walked into the class room. Rather than the rows of two desks, they had all been pushed into groups of four. That could only mean group project. Bruce hated group projects. Still he pulled Natasha over to the usual desks at the back and sat down and waited to see who would be forced to join them. Kids filed in with excitement clear on their face as they started to divide into their groups of close friends. "You know who we're going to get," Bruce muttered to Natasha.

"Oh god," Natasha grumbled. Just as Bruce thought, Clint sat down across from Natasha and looked at her then at Bruce. "You?"

"Last seats open," Clint replied simply as another kid joined them who no one paid mind to.

Bruce listened carefully to the assignment while Clint grinned like an idiot and Natasha glared at him the entire time. Bruce rolled his eyes, the assignment was easy. Often he'd been offered the chance to skip a grade or two or even switch to a school for those with his intellectual gifts. Bruce had always turned it down; it didn't matter if he could complete everything in his grade in less than a month. It didn't matter if it was boring at times to him to move as slowly as they did. He wouldn't leave Natasha; if she couldn't go with him then he had no interest in what they had to offer. Hearing it was a group assignment for science in order to get ready for a field trip that would come up at the end of the month caused Brue to perk up a bit more.

"Guessing he likes science?" Clint whispered with a smirk noticing Bruce's reaction.

"Understatement of the year," Natasha replied then smirked, "we'll have this assignment done in no time with Bruce."

"Well from the sounds of it this might be my first A," Clint chuckled lightly as he whispered. Okay so he had picked the right table to sit at in order to boost his science grade.

Bruce zoned out halfway through the explanation on what they were doing, just completing an electrical circuits in different ways, simple enough. When the kits were handed out Bruce set to work, Natasha and Clint leaning over acting like they were paying attention. The fourth kid at the table did seem to want to understand so Bruce tried to explain everything to them while completing the project and writing down the answers to hand in after.

"So quick question," Clint looked at Natasha, "You said Bruce was your brother, but I couldn't help but notice during attendance that you two aren't called beside each other."

"You're certainly observant," Natasha raised an eyebrow looking at the boy.

"I don't miss things," Clint shrugged, "but you still called him your brother. Are your parents divorced or what?"

Natasha wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell this boy who had tried to hurt Bruce the day before, she kind of wanted to find a way to take her aggression out on him. She knew she'd get in trouble for it so she kept herself calm, for the most part; she just had a fist clenched under the table. She took a deep breath prepared to tell the boy to back off.

Then Bruce spoke up as he set up the first electrical circuit, "Adoption actually. My parents are gone so I went to live with Natasha and my aunt and uncle are now my guardians and thus for all purposes are now my parents. However I still have the last name of my parents, Banner." He purposely didn't say that Natasha was adopted, that was her choice to tell or not.

"So you two are cousins then?" Clint raised an eyebrow in confusion, "not brother and sister?"

"Bruce is my brother," Natasha stated firmly glaring at Clint, "never mistake that. Just because we don't have the same last name doesn't change that. Picking a fight with him is picking a fight with me."

"I think I learned that yesterday," Clint replied with a slight chuckle, "and that is not a mistake I want to make again. I have to say though you're weird."

"What?" Natasha raised an eyebrow at the boy.

"You're weird," Clint shrugged, "You're not like other girls. You act like one of the boys. You don't seem to mind getting your hands dirty, you pick fights, and really you just don't act like a girl."

Natasha gave Clint a very serious stare as what he said seemed to sink in. She didn't bother to say anything instead watching what Bruce was doing as he finished the last question. She ignored Clint for the rest of the day and barely said a word to Bruce, looking like she was in deep thought the entire time.

Clint asked Bruce what he did wrong but Bruce just shrugged, he'd talk to Natasha when they got home but he wasn't going to confront her when others were watching. Bruce knew full well that Natasha wouldn't answer him around others.

The two walked home after school and went up to their room to put their stuff away. When Bruce finished he poked his head out of his room to go talk to Natasha he found she wasn't in her room. He looked around for her in the house before heading to the backyard. Staring up at the tree-house that had been built in one of the trees he suspected she was hiding there. Natasha had kept climbing the tree during the summer months. Bruce's Uncle had gotten worried about her habit, thinking that some of the branches could break from her climbing. He looked for ways to deal with it and ended up building the tree-house where the tree was strongest. Ever since it had become a safe place for both Bruce and Natasha when something was wrong and they didn't want to stay inside.

Bruce climbed up, he had never been good with heights of climbing unlike Natasha but he pushed himself to keep going until he was inside. Sure enough there was Natasha sitting in one of the corners.

"Tash? What's wrong?" Bruce walked over to her, clearly worried.

"Bruce, am I weird?" Natasha looked up at him.

"What?"

"It's what Clint said at school. He said I'm weird because I don't act like other girls and I thought about it. He's right I don't act like other girls. I do pick fights a lot and act more like a boy sometimes. I don't shy away from getting dirty. I just don't get it. Is there something wrong with me?" Natasha shook her head unsure what to think. "Maybe it's why I keep having those weird nightmares. They're trying to tell me that I'm not right, that I don't belong."

"Not from where I stand," Bruce smiled at her, "if you didn't pick fights I'd have been injured really badly yesterday by Clint's brother and his friends. If you didn't mind getting dirty then you'd be afraid of climbing the tree and we would have never gotten this place. There's nothing wrong with you Tash. You're my sister so you belong, and you're the best sister I can ask for." Bruce knelt down in front of Natasha. She looked at him and smiled before hugging him.

"Well I guess someone has to look out for you and fight," Natasha mumbled.

"And someone has to remind you that you will always belong," Bruce replied returning the hug.

* * *

((I was stuck for a while because I wasn't sure how to really tie this chapter fully in with the plot but still wanted a intro to Clint. This was the last planned chapter of them as kids at all after this the plan was to go to High School and take a humorous approach, because I like making people laugh while still having a serious plot run under things. Not sure if/when there will be another chapter but this one was nearly done so I thought "Why not". I hope those who read it enjoy it.))


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